Matt173

I will report back when I get a chance to run some more diagnostics. I will try to do a quick video clip that demonstrates the issue. One thing I have not mentioned is that so far my entire boot setup was legacy and that I consider switching to UEFI. I don't think it might make a difference, but just stating for completeness sake.

re (b1), I understand and that was not what I was referring to as "bug", what is a bug is that there is currently no way to spin the unassigned, unmounted disks down anymore. re (b2), I tried both and neither a timer nor the -y parameter spins down the disks. re (b3), it is a behavior that I observe and can reproduce, I admit there is a possibility this might be the case because I pass those unassigned/unmounted disks through to a VM. But even when that VM is stopped and not running but still tabbing on "VM" in UnRaid spins up those decides. re(b4), that I understand and it makes sense, however, none of your comments above address the real problem which is that unassigned and unmounted disks are spun up and then UnRaid stubbornly refuses to let go of its hold on those disks, neither third party apps can spin those disks down anymore, nor any command in the terminal/shell. If UnRaid indeed did not impact any of the unassigned/unmounted disks then surely a third party application or a terminal command should allow the disks to be spun down. I can safely exclude hardware issues because in a clean ubuntu install I can easily spin the disks down and a bare metal FreeNas install without UnRaid involvement does spin down the disks. The logical conclusion must be that UnRaid does somehow prevent any other application nor the OS to spin down those unassigned and unmounted disks and that is imho definitely the wrong way to go about things and most likely a bug or oversight. At this point I will not proceed with a paid license and most likely will seek alternative solutions other than UnRaid to solve my particular use case. I am more than willing to help pinpoint and debug this issue but the above observations are solid, reproducible, and verifiable.

a) With FreeNAS running on a VM within UnRaid and trying to spin down the passed-through disks , failure. However, FreeNAS alone (outside of a VM) perfectly spins down devices when configured to do so, all on 100% identical hardware. b) With all VMs turned off or not even any configured VMs present, I observed the following (the following all applies to unassigned/unmounted devices): b1) The disks spin up upon boot and never spin down again without any further intervention b2) Instructing the disks to spin down via hdparm with various idle timeouts does NOT spind down any disks b3) Without the Unassigned Devices Plugin, clicking on an individual disk to spin them down, spins down the disk but as soon as I tab onto the "VM" tab or other tabs in Unraid all spun-down disks are again spun up and stay spun up. b4) With the Unassigned Devices Plugin, only when I mount a disk will the disk after some time spin down. However, this is not a feasible solution because the file system is zfs (FreeNAS) and the disks with this file system cannot be mounted. This is where I stand at the moment, what I described is not just one bug but at least 3-4 different bugs that all relate to spinning down disks.

I appreciate your suggestions and sorry if I came across as being abrasive. I have not installed any plugins and experienced the same issues. Then I added the Unassigned Devices plugin with same results. I will post a report with LT, thanks for your suggestion.

I saw it but it does not directly relate to the issue I described. Without touching a thing and waiting hours none of the unassigned/unmounted disks spin down, I double-checked there were no system messages generated during that time span. By the way, and I am not addressing you with this at all, this has been an issue for years, many users brought it up, were ignored, and when they reminded others of this issue they were criticized and shot down. If this is a bug then it has been pointed out uncountable times and perhaps it was the reason I posted across threads because it cost me many hours of debugging and pinpointing issues. But I apologize for cross posting and can delete the other posts in other threads. The problem description really is rather simple: Unassigned disks, unmounted, and still UnRaid holds a tight grip on power management of those disks (something that has also been denied in multiple threads). I don't want to come across as being hostile but after all this is a for-pay software (again, I don't address you here or your volunteer efforts) but those are facts and they don't relate to any controllers or hardware resources because power management works perfectly fine when running other apps outside of UnRaid, such as a bare metal FreeNas setup.

yes, I thought it might be a possibility and tested that initially but quickly excluded this possibility. It is an issue of UnRaid touching disks that are unassigned and not even mounted and I believe that should not be the case. If I wanted UnRaid to handle those disks I would mount them or even add them to the array. I am just not sure at this point whether it is a bug and unintended or an issue on my hardware end or there is a reason I don't current grasp why UnRaid keeps those disks spinning.

No, I pass the disks to the VM. But it cannot be the issue as my unassigned (and unmounted) disks do not spin down even when I do not run any VM at all.

Apologies, but is this not the correct thread?

I want to achieve the opposite, to spin down unassigned devices. Somehow I cannot spin down the devices, neither via Gui and using this plugin nor in the terminal with hdparm. I think I found what the issue might be, in the post I reference here you state that only mounted devices will be affected by this plugin and the 15minute idle time before devices are spun down. However, I have devices (which I pass through in VMs) that hold zfs_member paritions and cannot be mounted in UnRaid. Could this be the problem why none of the settings in Unraid (with UD plugin installed or not) can cause my unassigned disks to spin down? If only mounted devices can be spun down what can I do to have my zfs_member partition holding disks, that cannot be mounted, spun down? Ideally I don't want Unraid in any way affect unassigned and unmounted devices but it in fact does, there is no way for me to spin down those particular disks at the moment. Is this intended or something that has not been considered? I guess the simpler question to ask is : How can I prevent unassigned and unmounted disks from spinning up and more importantly how I can make them spin down and stay spun down in case they spun up during boot?

Has this problem ever been solved? I see the same problem (with or without installed plugin): When loading different tabs in the GUI unassigned devices are spun up.....?

I am experiencing the same problem, has there been any solution found to this issue? I have multiple unassigned devices that I pass through to a VM and even when the VM is shut down the unassigned devices keep spinning. Whether I have the Unassigned Device Plugin installed or not makes no difference, also as @mikedpitt420 mentioned, refreshing to tabbing on different pages in the Unraid Gui makes all unassigned devices spin up. I can live with spinning up unassigned devices upon Unraid bootup but even running hdparm -S 200 /dev/sbc does not spin down my device at all after specified period. Something in Unraid holds a firm grip on power management of unassigned devices. I run Unraid 6.3.5 and no other plugins (aside Unassigned Devices Plugin but even without it did not work). Any pointers what I could check next?

I do not have the UA Plugin installed and yet UnRaid very much controls the Unassigned Devices. Unassigned disks are spun up not just during boot up but also during runtime of the server (such as when one clicks on the "VM" tab. This is a big problem for some users that pass through the unassigned disks to VMs.

I believe this comment/assessment is factually incorrect: Unraid very much greatly impacts unassigned devices. Even hdparm commands in the shell to manually spin down unassigned devices have zero effect (I am on version 6.3.5 as I write this reply). Unassigned devices keep spinning and this is a HUGE problem for me as I run FreeNas on a VM inside Unraid where I pass through the unassigned devices and because of this issue FreeNas cannot perform any power management such as spin down (let's not argue whether this is advised or not, I think a very solid case can be made that a media repo that is accessed 2-3 times a month should have its disks spun down) because Unraid holds a firm grip at power management even of the unassigned devices. Strangely, "Spin Down Delay" in Settings/Disk Settings only impacts disks on the grid but not unassigned devices. For my use case (freeNas on VM) this is a huge issue and I wonder whether there is a workaround how to avoid this. Another example that disproves your claim is when one manually spins down unassigned disks in the GUI and then clicks on the "VM" tab all unassigned disks are spun up again. Hence, Unraid very much controls unassigned devices.

I am pretty new to Unraid and I have the following problem related to Unassigned Devices: I run a VM with FreeNAS on Unraid and I pass through all the hard disks that FreeNas uses (those disks I leave as unassigned in Unraid). This all works fine, however, as I manage a media server which is sometimes only accessed a few times per month I need to let the disks spin down. This all works perfectly fine on a bare metal FreeNas install without Unraid, hence it is not a FreeNas issue. This does not work, however with Unraid as hypervisor and hence my asking what in Unraid wakes Unassigned Devices and what can I do to avoid it. I saw, for example, that even when manually spinning down unassigned devices in Unraid that as soon as I click on the 'VM' tab the unassigned devices are spun up again. Is there a way to completely hide certain drives from Unraid? It has already cost me a lot of time and headache to pinpoint the issue and I would hope there is a solution, after all those are unassigned devices which Unraid should NEVER touch in any event not even "poke" via S.M.A.R.T checks. Is there any solution out I have overlooked or could someone chime in how to tackle this issue? Thanks a lot, and aside this issue, Unraid is awesome, Matt